A police sergeant thought her spine may have ‘shattered’ and feared being ‘paralysed’ after a Palestine Action activist hit her in the back with a sledgehammer, a court has heard.
Sergeant Kate Evans was allegedly hit by an activist who broke into a defence firm’s factory in 2024 while she tried to arrest another trespasser.
Six activists entered the UK site of Israel-based defence firm Elbit Systems near Bristol on August 6, 2024, destroying property and clashing with security guards and police, it is alleged.
Prosecutors said Samuel Corner hit Sergeant Evans while she was on her knees trying to arrest Zoe Rogers.
The pair are on trial with four other defendants – Charlotte Head, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani and Jordan Devlin – at Woolwich Crown Court.
Sergeant Evans told the court on Friday: ‘It was a thud and it just dispersed, I felt it in my back, it dispersed across my whole body, down my legs, everywhere.’
She said she had been ‘shocked’, ‘in disbelief’ and ‘scared’, adding: ‘I thought my spine could have been shattered from the impact, I didn’t know if I could move, whether I was paralysed at the time.’
Her colleague PC Peter Adams told the court that Corner hit Sergeant Evans with a ‘considerable amount of force’.
PC Adams said he ‘heard her scream in pain from the impact’ and added Corner was ‘clearly a threat at that time’.
His colleague PC Aaron Buxton said he saw Corner raise the sledgehammer over his shoulder and strike Sergeant Evans, who made an ‘immediate noise of pain’.
He told jurors that Corner had previously swung the sledgehammer towards him ‘multiple times’ as he was on the floor struggling with Devlin.
The officer said he had felt ‘significant pain’ down his right calf, adding: ‘I was terrified in that situation, it’s not somewhere I expected to find myself and I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be from that.’
In the early hours of the morning the six defendants, dressed in red jumpsuits, crashed into the shutters outside the factory in a prison van driven by Head which was ‘used as a battering ram’, the court previously heard.
Once inside they destroyed computers and drones using sledgehammers and crowbars, spraying the walls and floor with red paint using fire extinguishers.
Prosecutors said the raid was ‘carefully planned’ with documents found on an encrypted site revealing it aimed to ‘shut Elbit down’, describing that aim as Palestine Action’s ‘primary objective’.
‘We can do that by sticking together and ensuring its destruction with our brain and muscle,’ the documents added.
Head, 30, Corner, 23, Kamio, 30, Rajwani, 21, Rogers, 22, and Devlin, 31, all deny criminal damage.
Corner faces a further charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Sergeant Evans, which he denies.
The trial continues.
